Fight. Level. Survive.

Chapter 56 – Demony

After a somewhat awkward early evening, with Mayry insisted that nothing was wrong, that she wasn’t mad at him, but continued to act like something was wrong and as if she was very mad at him, they both decided to head to bed early.

Mason stood by the bed, uncertain as to what Mayry had in mind for the sleeping arrangement. The bed was quite large, but judging by how annoyed she was acting, Mason assumed she would probably appreciate some time away from him.

“I’ll sleep in the Trunk, give you some privacy,” he said uncertainly.

Mayry looked up at him and sighed, “It’s fine. You might as well sleep in the bed you paid for.”

“Oh, okay, sure,” Mason got into the bed and looked up at Mayry, who was just standing there, staring at him with a frown on her face.

"Do you genuinely not know why I’m annoyed at you?” She asked, her expression changing from a frown to one of bewilderment.

“Ah! So you are annoyed!” Mason exclaimed.

Her frown instantly returned. “Never mind.” She got into bed facing away from Mason and ran a finger over the rune that extinguished the light.

“Huh?!” was all Mason could think to say.

“Just drop it and go to sleep, Mason.”

“Err, okay, See you tomorrow I guess? Goodnight.” Mason said trying to figure out how they had gone from hiding from crazy snake worshippers one moment to an awkward evening with Mayry acting weird.

He knew he had never been amazing when it came to women and he fully suspected he had made some sort of social faux pas that he had been completely oblivious too but for the life of him, he could not figure out what it was.

While he wasn’t entirely sure what he had done, he didn’t want Mayry to still be pissed off when they woke up so he spent the next few minutes trying to psych himself up to say what he wanted to say.

“Mayry, you awake?” He whispered.

He got no reply but his enhanced perception did let him hear a change in her heart rate when he spoke which made him think she probably wasn’t yet asleep.

“Erm, I’m sorry for whatever I did. I’m pretty shitty at these sorts of things and I… err just wanted you to know that I really like you and I…”

Before he could finish there was a huge bang outside which caused them both to jolt upright in bed as the whole building shook; their attention was immediately diverted to the commotion outside. Startled, Mason made to quickly get out of bed but stopped as Mayry grabbed his arm. “Ignore that for a second! What were you saying?!”

He looked over at the window for a second before looking back at Mayry. “Oh, I was saying….” A bang interrupted him a second time.

“Dammit!” Mayry shouted. She got out of bed and rushed towards the window, mentally swearing vengeance against whoever it was making the commotion outside. She flung open the curtain and tried to identify the source of the noise but from the angle she could see there was nothing out of the ordinary. She was about to turn back when she noticed an orange hue coming from a few streets away. There was another bang, and she saw a massive fireball shoot into the building across from the Inn.

Mason was by her side in an instant. Mayry glared at him and said, “Don’t think this gets you off the hook. We are going to talk later and you will finish what you were going to say!” With a sigh, she added, “We better take a look at what’s happening… Chaos knows it probably has something to do with us.”

They made it to the front door of the inn and peeked out, they saw six of the hooded figures. They stood right outside the inn as if they knew exactly where they were and had just been destroying things to get them to come out.

Six voices spoke in unison, creating a discordant harmony which made Mason’s hair stand on end. “We know where you are. We know what you are. We know what you did. Come out, so we may speak."

Mason glanced at Mayry who just shrugged. “There are only six of them. If it comes down to a fight I’d put my money on us.”

They exited the Inn and stood opposite the Kethul.

Everything about this encounter was putting Mason on edge. It was dark out, and they were being confronted by mysterious hooded figures who all spoke at once. What about this situation didn’t sound like a horror film?

He used Identify on one of them at random.

Kethulli Priest - Level 15

The Order of The Kethul Worship the Basilsk. They are from a very distant land and not much is known about them. Most who seek to learn more are never seen again. They would be pretty angry if they ever found out what happend to their lord and saviour…

Reading the description made Mason wince internally. He quickly used Identify on the rest of them and got similar results. They were pretty strong, and had good reason to not like Mason. This just kept getting better and better.

Summoning his courage he stepped forward and asked in as bold of a voice as he could, “What do you want?”

There was silence for a moment, then twelve voices replied. Mason spun as they spoke and spotted six more that had somehow gotten behind them. “We are here for the ones who our lord has chosen. He has blessed you with his defence has he not?”

That wasn’t what he had been expecting. Blessed with their lord’s defence? What the heck did that mean? “I don-“ Mayry stepped forward and cut him off by elbowing him in the side.

“Yes,” she called out, “Your lord appeared to us and shed his hide so he may protect us as his chosen.”

Mason was lost. He had no idea what was going on but decide to just let Mayry do her thing and bullshit her way out of the confrontation. He still thought he could take them if he had to but the second six had appeared so suddenly that it made him cautious, he had no idea how many of them there may be.

“Yet you do not wear his protection now?” The voices asked incredulously. “Do you turn from him and shun his gift?”

“We only wear the protection in battle, to wear it any other time would be an insult to your… lord.” Mayry sounded uncertain but from the way the hooded figures seemed to relax as her words it seemed to be working.

“Ah, it is good to hear that you are still on the path. We came to deliver a message from our lord’s most trusted servants, his seers.” As one, the figures removed their hoods to reveal their faces. Each of them was bald, with serpentine features and every one of them had had their eyes removed, leaving only empty holes in their place. Mayry took a step back in horror.

Mason just sighed, at least this explained the creepy hoods, If he was bald and had empty eye holes he would wear a hood too.

One of the Kethul stepped closer to them and he alone said. “For us to deliver unto you the message you must first prove yourself as worthy.”

If they wanted him to shave his head and cut his eyes out they were even crazier than he had thought. Mason was about to tell them where they could stick their snake worship when the single Kethul continued, “We are many. If you defeat us in combat, we will consider you to be worthy to be our lord’s chosen.”

There was a pause, where nobody spoke. Of course, there was going to be a fight, there is always a fight but these guys had no eyes. Fighting them and winning would just feel kinda wrong.

Mason finally spoke up, “With all due respect, fighting the… visually impaired doesn’t seem like the best way to prove our strength.”

Mayry shot him a look that he interpreted as, ’Will you shut up I’m handling this.’ She opened her mouth, probably to apologise for his comment but the leader Kethul spoke first. “We gave up our eyes for our lord and so he guides us, we assure you we have no need for sight.”

Before Mason could say anything, using her best diplomatic voice Mayry said, “We agree to a fight but not here. If it is acceptable to you we will meet you outside the city tomorrow at dawn.”

The single Kethul stepped back in line with the others and all twelve in unison said, “Agreed.” The next moment they pulled their hoods back up and disappeared into the darkness.

While they had been talking, people in the distance had been getting control of the fires the Kethul had started. Checking there was nothing they could do to help they went back to their Inn room.

*****

“Well, that happened,” Mason said dryly. They were both sat on the bed trying to digest what had just happened.

“Yes, it did… I think in the future maybe you should let me do the talking in situations like that.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they challenged us to a fight and your first response was to say you couldn’t fight them because they were visually impaired! What the heck Mason, why would you think that was a good thing to say?!”

“Well, they have no eyes! They ARE visually impaired. How are they supposed to fight? Do you often beat up blind people, Mayry?”

Not sure if Mason was serious or just acting the fool Mayry rested her face in her hand and shook her head.“They obviously have some other way of seeing, otherwise, how would they of found us?”

“That’s… actually a pretty good point. Why do they want to fight us anyway? I don’t get it, you’d have thought killing their ‘Lord’ would be enough to prove our ‘worthiness’.

“Were you not listening at all?” Looking at him now, she continued, “They don’t even know we killed the basilisk. They think we’re its holy chosen, or something. They definitely would not have been so nice if they had known. I think one of them must have some sort of link with the basilisk which still works on its scales. That must be how they found us.”

It made sense. The Kethul vastly outnumbered the two of them. If they had known that the Basilisk was dead then they would have most likely would have just ambushed them. He hadn’t used Identify on them but he was pretty confident that, with Mayry’s help, he could take the 12 of them, any more than that he was less sure of.

Mayry had said she had done some research on the so he asked her, “How many of them do you think there are? Do you think they came here with their full force or were they just the vanguard of a bigger group?”

She looked thoughtful then replied. “I couldn’t find a ton of information about them. I don’t know how many are here but I would guess there are far more out there.”

Yawning, Mason shrugged, “I still reckon we could take them… if all else fails you can just go all demony and turn them into ash,”

With her signature eyeroll, she shot back, “Har har, you know I don't have that much control yet and besides you’re supposed to be the muscle not me!”

“Oh is that right? So what does that make you?” Mason asked.

“I'm obviously the brains,” she said, putting far too much emphasis on the word ‘obviously’.

Feigning outrage, Mason nudged her with his elbow, “Hey! what do you mean obviously! Are you calling me dumb?”

"No! Not dumb… Just… Err… You know what? I’m hungry, should we see if the Inn is still serving food?" she suggested, trying change the topic..

“Oh, no no. You can't just change the subject!" Mason protested

"Oh, can’t I? Well, how about we go back to what you were saying earlier before all the drama started."

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said innocently, catching sight of Mayry’s death glare, he quickly added “Um.. Actually yeah, food all of a sudden sounds good!,”

Her stern expression broke, laughing, she said, "Okay fine, but we are going to talk about it Mason, or I’m going to go all Demony on you and turn you to ash."

With a grin, Mason replied, “Don’t you threaten me with a good time.” And patted the half Demon woman on the head and sprinted out of the room as he saw Mayry summon a fireball to her hand.

****

They spent the rest of the evening eating and drinking in the Inn’s quaint little dining area. They talked about all sorts with both of them dancing around what was really on their minds. Mason made a few attempts at just blurting it out, but each time chickened out with Mayry none the wiser.

After a while they headed back up to their room. After the shutting door, Mason turned and nearly toppled over in surprise when Mayry pressed her lips against his.

After a few moments where Mason was unable to summon up a single thought, Mayry pulled away.

Mason stood there, opening and closing his mouth doing his best impersonation of a guppy.

Mayry chuckled softly at Mason's stunned expression. “I’m that good ey?”

"No," Mason stammered, "I mean yes. No, I mean, I just wasn’t expecting that… I thought we were just going to talk?"

"We were," Mayry replied with a playful smirk, "but I'm tired and this was faster. You were taking far too lon- Oof” Mason cut her off by giving her a taste of her own medicine and surpising her with a kiss. This time is lasted as long as it took for them to slowly migrate over to the bed.